Hey there! Mike here, and if you’ve been on the web, you’ve probably come across ads for VPNs. “And that brings us to our sponsor… SURFSHARK!” Personally, I’m more of a NordVPN kind of fella. But that brings up an important question: What exactly is a VPN? How does it work? Can it truly safeguard your online activities and protect you from cybercrime?

To truly understand how secure your online browsing is with a VPN, let’s start with a quick high-level overview of how the internet works. Right now, you’re probably reading this on a cell phone, laptop, or tablet. If it’s a laptop or a tablet, chances are you’re connected to a home router or modem either through a wired ethernet connection or Wi-Fi provided by your internet service provider. On a cell phone, you’re connected to your cellular service provider’s 4G or 5G network. These providers assign an Internet Protocol (IP) Address to your modem or phone, which is a unique set of numbers that helps identify and direct internet traffic to you. Similar conceptually to how the post office delivers mail to you. 

Now, here’s where a VPN becomes handy: Like your home address and the post office, your IP Address is how your ISP knows how to get data to you. Unfortunately this is also how websites track you, allowing sites like Facebook and Youtube to advertise to you the things you’ve looked up. With VPNs, they establish an encrypted connection from your device to the VPN provider’s servers. Through their network, your searches are conducted and results are returned to you.This means that your IP address activities are shielded from your ISP, advertisers, people on public Wi-Fi’s like at Starbucks and other websites. It’ll just look like all these requests are coming from your VPN provider.

VPNs also prove useful when you want to access resources in other countries. For example, you might want to stream Netflix shows that were removed from your region, or visit websites blocked in your country. In China, for instance, sites like Pinterest, Reddit, DropBox, and even Google are blocked. During the pandemic, VPNs allowed protesters in China to bypass these restrictions, enabling them to access platforms like Twitter and Reddit to share their experiences during the Covid lockdowns. 

But does using a VPN guarantee complete anonymity? Not entirely, and here’s why: WebRTC leaks. WebRTC, short for Web Real-Time Communications, is a tool that allows browser-based real-time communication over the web. Web based apps like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meets, and more use WebRTC for things like live meetings, over the web voice conversations and other peer-to-peer activities. When WebRTC is enabled on your browser, your IP address remains exposed due to the protocol it employs. That protocol is ICE (Inter Connectivity Establishment), which bypasses VPN connections and requests your IP address from STUN/TURN servers. This means unfortunately, your VPN and other privacy tools cannot encrypt this traffic, making it easy for websites to obtain your IP address, even when your VPN is active.

Additionally, there are other methods of tracking you, such as DNS leaks or potential vulnerabilities within your VPN provider’s infrastructure if it were to be compromised without their knowledge. 

So, what’s the point then? If websites can still find out who you are and what you’re up to, why bother paying for VPN services? Well.. have you seen Netflix in other countries?! Jokes aside, VPNs can offer a certain level of privacy and protection, depending on where you are and what you’re doing online. They’re also a valuable tool for gaining access to resources that might be restricted where you are— like all the shows Netflix removes from your country and adds to another. With that, let me know your thoughts. And like always, stay classy.